Pablo Cheese Tart opens its first cafe in Singapore

Popular Japanese cheese tart brand, Pablo, finally opened its first café outlet in Singapore on Tuesday (8 August) morning. Located at Level 1 of Wisma Atria shopping mall, the café spans 1,400 square feet and can seat a total of 78 dine-in customers.

To ensure that the standards of Pablo’s outlets in Japan are maintained in the Singapore one, the interior design of the outlet is similar to that at its Japanese counterparts, from the soft wood tones of the furniture down to the lighting.

A long queue formed before the official opening of Pablo Cheese Tart. (Photo: Gabriel Choo/Yahoo Lifestyle Singapore)

Fans of the popular cheese tart started to queue as early as 9.30am, even though the store would only be opened to the public at noon. By 11.30am, there were more than 60 people in the queue.

Prudence Tay, a 32-year-old housewife, who came to queue at around 10am with her husband, was surprised to see nearly 10 people in the queue already at that time.

“I didn’t expect a queue to form two hours before the opening. I didn’t know there are so many cheese tart lovers in Singapore,” Tay said. She got to know of Pablo while holidaying in Japan last year and was glad they decided to open in Singapore.

Others in the queue were not as eager to sink their teeth into the cheese tarts. Instead, they came for the goodie bags which would be given out to the first 100 customers.

However, the goodie bag, which consists of a huge cheese tart-shaped pillow and a mug with the Pablo logo, would only be given out if they make the maximum purchase. Each customer can purchase up to two large cheese tarts and two boxes of six mini tarts each.

Student Eliza Soh, 22, who was in the queue, said, “I really like cheese tarts but I honestly wouldn’t waste two hours queueing up. But when I heard there were goodie bags too, I just knew I had to be there”.

“The brand is very unique, and the products offered really set it apart from its competition”, said Vijay K Pillai, owner of Pablo Cheese Tarts in Singapore, in his opening address. He was thankful for the Japan team who helped with the opening for the past few weeks.

Pablo Japan’s founder and CEO, Masamitsu Sakimoto, who was also at the opening ceremony, shared that in the coming months, fans can look forward to a range of new flavours including some that will only be available in Singapore.

The opening ceremony included dance and percussion performances by some Pablo staff who danced along to Pablo’s theme song.